Game of Thrones Season 5 Spoiler: Does Stannis Die?

In the Season 4 finale of Game of Thrones, Stannis Baratheon(Stephen Dillane) shocked everyone by showing up at the Wall with a fancy new army and kicking some Wildling butt. Now that he’s back to his warring ways after playing it safe for two years, should we be worried for Stannis’ safety? War brings with it lots of risks, so is Stannis going to die in Season 5?

Warning! This article contains spoilers from the A Song of Ice and Fire book series, click away now if you don’t want to know!

Depending on how far into the books Season 5 reaches, there’s a chance that Stannis’ fate could be unclear heading into Season 6. In the books, Stannis heads south from the Wall, recruiting a few smaller northern houses along the way. His goal is to storm Winterfell and overthrow the Boltons. The Boltons are at Winterfell to wed Ramsay Bolton to someone posing as Arya Stark, in an attempt to get the rest of the North comfortable with the Boltons being in charge. The Boltons also have some Freys with them, and the Freys are at the throats of the Manderlys, who secretly have an agreement with Stannis and may turn their coats in the battle. Meanwhile, Stannis thinks he has the Karstarks on his side, but they are secretly on the side of the Boltons.

Get all that?

While the show will probably leave out the numerous houses switching sides, we think we will probably get to see the battle of Winterfell — but we’re not sure if it will be in Season 5.

A Dance with Dragons, the most recently published book in the series, ends with a letter arriving at the Wall for Jon Snow, supposedly from Ramsay Bolton,who claims to have killed Stannis and defeated his army at Winterfell. Many believe the letter to be false, and preview chapters from the next book in the series, The Winds of Winter, show that the battle has yet to take place. So assuming that the letter is false, we think Stannis will live to see Season 6, but there’s a chance we could all be led to think he’s dead if the letter makes it into the end of Season 5.